Hospice Care: Mercy Medical sells Daphne campus for $9.4 million

Volunteers clean up the public access to Mercy Medical in 2010 in Daphne. (PRESS-REGISTER/file photo)

DAPHNE, Alabama -- Mercy Medical, a local leader in faith-based hospice care in coastal Alabama, is selling its main campus in Daphne for $9.4 million to SE Healthcare Inc., said Jake Bell, Mercy’s chief executive officer and president.

Mercy is in negotiations to sell most of its other properties — Carroll Place and The Hamlet in Fairhope and Catherine Place and the John McClure Snook Memory Care Community in Daphne — to a separate undisclosed company for about $20 million, he said.

About 300 of the company’s 470 employees will no longer work for Mercy when the deal becomes official Dec. 1, Bell said, adding that about 95 percent of the workers are expected to remain with the new business.

SE Healthcare will be managed by Florida-based Southern SNF Management Inc., according to Michael Bokor, CEO of the Fort Lauderdale management firm.

Bokor said retaining at least 95 percent of Mercy’s current Daphne work force is accurate: “We are going to be looking at systems and operations to make sure they are as efficient and productive as possible. I don’t anticipate any wholesale changes” in the near future.

Mercy Medical will maintain a presence in Daphne, Bell said, leasing office space at its current location from SE Healthcare.

Mercy employees were officially notified about the sale during meetings Tuesday, Bell said. “There was sorrow and understanding and excitement,” he said. “I think the overall message people seemed to take away was this is a good transition.”

Founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1949, the company will now focus its resources on home care services and a new program supported by state and federal government Medicaid funds called Mercy LIFE, company officials said.

Mercy LIFE, a program of all-inclusive care for the elderly, also known as PACE, was created to serve the frail and the poor who require nursing home-level care, officials said.

Bell said that as the PACE program expands, Mercy hopes to grow its business and hire as many as 200 workers in the next two years. Other community programs run by Mercy Medical, including the Guardian Angel program that provides home health care services to chronically ill children, will not be affected by the sale, Bell said.

In January 2010, Mercy Medical sold two Mobile properties — McAuley Place and Mercy Medical Mobile on Dauphin Street — to Monroeville-based Crowne Management for $4.5 million. McAuley Place is a 52-bed assisted living community next to Mercy Medical Mobile’s 20-bed skilled nursing unit.

Mercy Medical will retain Portier Place on Old Shell Road in Mobile, said Mercy spokeswoman Cecelia Mace.